Highways chiefs have been criticised for resurfacing a Cambridge street – around parked cars.

Residents were surprised to see Montreal Road in Romsey relaid with several large patches left untouched where cars had been parked.

The county council, which ordered the works, has blamed motorists for failing to heed requests to clear the street, and has said the job will be finished soon.

But Cllr Paul Saunders, who represents Romsey, believes the council should have done more to alert car owners to the resurfacing, and complains the messy finish has been in place for several weeks already.

He said: “I first noticed this a few weeks ago and I assumed they were going to come back and finish it but, since then, they have added lines and I realised they were going to leave it.

“It’s really patchy and some areas are completely missed, and it looks like vehicles were parked when the work was done.”

Cllr Saunders said he had written to the council asking it to fix the “substandard” finish.

He added: “This must be a situation which happens when many streets are done and the council must have tried and tested plans.

“We are all human and expect error but they should come back to fix it because it’s been left in a shocking and slapdash state.

“There are at least three places where this has happened in a relatively short street and I find it hard to believe that’s just a mistake by residents, it seems more likely that the signage was inadequate.”

A council spokesman said everything possible had been done to alert drivers.

He said: “We sent letters to every house, put cards on car windows, and put fliers and boards out to warn people to move their cars and we would like to thank all those people who did move their vehicles so we could resurface.

“Unfortunately some motorists didn’t move their cars but we had to carry out the resurfacing because we were using a specialist contractor who travels the country.

“The contractor did knock on doors but it would cost the taxpayer more if we had not have done the street and waited for the cars to move and come back again.

“They resurfaced the vast majority of the road where people had moved their vehicles and they will be returning to Cambridgeshire in the near future and will do the patches that are left.”

The spokesman said the council was now trying to contact the car owners to get them to move their cars.

He added it would have been more expensive not to do the work then because it would have required a the contractors to make a specialist trip to the county shortly afterwards.